Home life with an elderly Japanese lady (Okaasan) who has to live with a not-so-sweet foreign daughter-in-law (Oyomesan).

Monday, 1 June 2015

Thru her eyes....

Thru Okaasan's eyes the world is very different - and we get glimpses of that when we walk and talk with her.Yesterday was Family Outing day to the shopping mall. After Dear Son had supervised Bath Time successfully he said that he needed some sports wear for work so off the three of us went. First a huge ramen noodles lunch (wow - Okaasan can eat tonnes!) - and then I kindly let him go off to the sports shop alone.I walked Okaasan round the mall for mental and physical benefits.Going to the mall does feel like taking a child shopping - one adult goes off to do what they need, and the other takes care of the "child", checking if she needs the toilet, or something to drink or somewhere to sit down. Alerting her to dangers.Okaasan trots unsteadily along behind me round the shops...touching what I touch and peering out at the world of people.There was a stage in the center of the mall with a pretty bad girl singer performing for lots of young male fans.Okaasan realised this three or four times as we walked round the shops: "look! Look! There are people looking at something, there must be an event! Let's go and see!".And so we went back and forth between shops and the balcony overlooking the stage area. Each time she got to the balcony edge she appeared to be seeing the girl singer for the first time....Later - while I was on Shopping Alone Time in the pet store - Dear Son steered Okaasan back towards the parking area. As they crossed the glassed-in bridge connecting buildings - Okaasan went to the window: "is this where you can see the girl singing?". And he realized she thought we were still inside the main mall. Now she had remembered the girl, but the place was different.Okaasan always, always goes on set routes in her trips outside the home. She really must need the reassurance of the same doors, the same stairs, the same shops - to make sense of where she is. Each trip out must be ripe with confusions.When we got home Okaasan went to sleep - and slept and slept - all through dinner time and only woke up some time in the middle of the night. It was a lot of experiences for her for one day.